I don't care who you are or where you've been or what you did before you got here. If you want to be taken seriously as a basketball coach at Alabama, you have to beat Kentucky.

Sooner or later. Occasionally, if not frequently.

Just like Alabama in football, Kentucky is the traditional basketball standard in the Southeastern Conference. Unlike Kentucky in football, Alabama has a proud basketball tradition all its own.

Some of the proudest moments are victories over Kentucky.

Anthony Grant joined that club Tuesday in just his second year on the job, and his accomplishment may be the most amazing of all. He managed to take down the Wildcats twice in the same night. First in a laugher and then a squeaker.

Alabama 68, Kentucky 66 doesn't begin to tell the story.

For much of the first half and enough of the second, Alabama didn't just get the better of Kentucky. Alabama was better than Kentucky. Alabama was smarter than Kentucky, on the bench and on the floor.

Grant outcoached John Calipari the way Calipari outrecruits just about everybody. The Alabama coach put together the perfect plan, and his players executed it, not to perfection, but to an unthinkable margin.

Cal? He looked in desperate need of a clue for the longest time, and his players followed his lead.

Grant's team is numerically challenged when it comes to scoring points, so he wanted to contest the game in the half-court. His promising freshman point guard, Trevor Releford, controlled the tempo like a veteran, and Alabama dominated in the half-court.

The Crimson Tide shot layups and threw down dunks, with an occasional 3-pointer thrown in just for fun. Alabama led by seven at the half. With 15:30 left in the game, the Crimson Tide went up 20.

Compare these teams by national rankings or recruiting rankings, and Alabama isn't 20 points better than Kentucky. Kentucky is 20 points better than Alabama.

Kentucky arrived at No. 12 in both polls. Alabama was unranked.

Kentucky put multiple McDonald's All-Americans on the floor. Alabama countered with the maturing JaMychal Green and a bunch of guys who've eaten at McDonald's.

It's an old joke, but it's no lie.

But just when Alabama started to play name that score, the talent gap kicked in. Kentucky started scoring the basketball, and Alabama started kicking it away, and the lead began to shrink, all the way down to a single point.

Which team took a charge in the final minute and created a turnover to take control? Which team played the end-game as if it had been here before?

Alabama, which tossed away a lead in the final minute Saturday at Arkansas, wouldn't let this edge or this game escape.

The win put Grant in good company. He's the latest Alabama coach to beat Kentucky early.

Mark Gottfried did it on his first try in 1999 when the Wildcats were ranked No. 5. Wimp Sanderson did it out of the chute in his first year, too, in 1981 when UK was No. 3. He went one better in his second season, beating the Wildcats in the SEC Tournament final on their home floor.

They featured that 48-46 thriller from 1982 on the video boards Tuesday. Sanderson, who was here, earned a warm ovation. His presence was fitting, maybe even inspiring, because Grant's team displayed a Sanderson-style toughness.

Sanderson's successor, David Hobbs, never beat Kentucky, which helps explain why his tenure was the shortest of any Alabama coach in the modern era. Beat Kentucky or not, and either way, the casual basketball fan of this football school will notice.

This latest victory may not go down as a Crimson Classic. Alabama history is too rich, and this Kentucky team is a poor imitation of Calipari's first edition. But this game should be remembered as Grant's first signature win.

Given the work he's quietly doing and the program he's slowly building, it won't be his last.